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BJP’s Murlidhar Mohol (left) and Congress’ Ravindra Dhangekar. (Express photos)
This Lok Sabha election, Pune is flooded with hashtags #punekarloversdhangekar #Dhangekar_pattern from the Congress and #punewithmodi #murlidharmohol4pune from the BJP. While Ravindra Dhangekar is the Congress candidate, the BJP has fielded Murlidhar Mohol for the Pune seat.
During on-ground election campaigns, political parties have felt the fear of missing out on reaching all the potential voters. So in the online space, they are battling for those extra votes, making campaigns heavily reliant on social media.
Hence these hashtags, which work as slogans for the online world, are created by teams that handle online campaigns for the parties. They are also using AI tools to create personalised videos and analyse interactions on social media to understand the sentiments of the common man. These online campaigns also help get volunteers on board to create and promote more content.
For the BJP, Nikhil Panchbhai is heading all the online campaigns for Pune city. He said the BJP has a war room for data creation and platform monitoring with around 15 to 18 people. His official social media team has over 65 people. The smaller teams are based out of different areas like Parvati, Kothrud, Shivaji Nagar, Wadgaon Sheri and Kasba.
But that is not all the people involved in campaigning for the party. With the help of hashtags and Google forms, Panchbhai has got some volunteers on board as well. “When elections were declared and Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya visited Pune, we started #punewithmodi. At that time, 1,370 people registered with us. Now 800 of them work on a voluntary basis. They are people from a corporate background, IT engineers, who can’t be part of the work throughout the year but take days off in the election period and write content from home,” he said.
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By shooting and broadcasting live videos from rallies and campaigns, Panchbhai is complementing online campaigns with on-ground campaigns. “We take videos from rallies, ask people what change has happened in India after Modi (became PM), take video bytes and circulate them from the ground,” he added.
Panchbhai also floats Google forms during major events organised in the city. He said, “When S Jaishankar came to the city, a significant number of people filled out our Google forms. While many were from the 18-25 and 30-35 age groups, there were also people above 50, who now show their support online through positive comments.”
The Congress has teams structured for each of its candidates. Dhangekar’s team has 22-25 people who work actively. Yuvraj Chavan’s Team V (media and election management) looks after Dhangekar’s campaigning.
He said, “We are heavily using AI and creating videos to reach every individual voter. This election season, what we understand is that people are responding to campaigning based on local issues. It is appealing to Punekars. We are mainly using Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, but WhatsApp too. With a single click we reach lakhs of people.”
Chavan and his team also read comments below videos of news channels and reactions on social media to gauge everyone’s sentiments. “The common man gives natural reactions and responses to any online content. Even in the absence of a survey, we can understand their opinions,” he said.
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